House of Frankenstein (13, etc. etc. ad infinitum)

Last night we only had time for one (so-called) fright flick – House of Frankenstein. Boris Karloff is back, but now in the role of mad scientist Dr. Niemann, who got in deep trouble with some villagers for transplanting the brain of a man into a dog. Or the brain of a dog into a man. Or something. Ygor seems to have stayed dead after Ghost of…but Bela is nowhere to be seen. The role of Dracula is now played by John Carradine, who can keep a straight face through pretty much anything. This one must have seriously tested his limits.

House of Frankenstein is where the Frankenstein mythology picks up a hunchback, who Karloff’s Niemann takes with him in the most improbable jailbreak ever and then forces to do his bidding by promising a new and improved body.

Niemann and his sidekick get control of a traveling Horror Show and cart their skeleton of Dracula to the Village that threw Niemann’s ass in the dungeon in the first place. Niemann removes the stake in Dracula’s heart and then wanders off to chip the Wolfman and Frankenstein out of the ice they’ve been preserved in since the end of Ghost. Lon is back as the Wolfman and Glenn Strange makes his debut as the Monster.

Intent on reviving the Monster, Niemann promises to cure the Wolfman by transplanting his brain into a new body. How that’s going to cure a werewolf is never explained, especially after we get the latest twist on the werewolf mythos – that it’s not enough to shoot him with a silver bullet, the gun needs to be fired by a woman who loves him. Luckily there’s a love triangle between a beautiful gypsy girl, the hunchback and the Wolfman, and Pretty Girl is quite the expert ammunition forger.

I won’t spoil the ending, mostly because I have no idea what happened at the end. Also because these movies are good goofy fun and I wouldn’t want to ruin it for you. But mostly because I have no idea what was going on.

Then we watched Countdown, The Daily Show, Colbert, and skipped through the Saturday Night Live special, which wasn’t especially special. I’m still agitated by this chilling Sarah Palin monologue.